Google search is dead

[UnbornTao]

I'm using Firefox and Startpage now.

Chromium, the project most browsers are based on (Brave, Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Helium), will soon drop support for Manifest V2 extensions, limiting the functionality of ad blockers.

I've heard good things about Zen Browser - a Firefox derivative.

Edited yesterday at 09:32 AM by UnbornTao

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@UnbornTao I'll give zen browser a walk around the block.

AI is being forced at every turn. I have uses for it, but most of the time I spend checking it's work - time I would spend actually doing the work myself. So I'm not actually saving any time, using my mind less and losing its sharpness / skill. 

I just don't need as much AI as is creeping in.

I use it mainly for document compilation and administration. Nothing high level as the amount of redo / revision of its work wastes more time than me doing the work.

Bit of a tangent 

Edited Monday at 04:21 PM by Natasha Tori Maru

[UnbornTao]

8 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@UnbornTao I'll give zen browser a walk around the block.

AI is being forced at every turn. I have uses for it, but most of the time I spend checking it's work - time I would spend actually doing the work myself. So I'm not actually saving any time, using my mind less and losing its sharpness / skill. 

I just don't need as much AI as is creeping in.

I use it mainly for document compilation and administration. Nothing high level as the amount of redo / revision of its work wastes more time than me doing the work.

Bit of a tangent 

Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs, in this context.

I like to think of LLMs as autocorrect on steroids, or as smart, interactive dictionaries. Something like that.

[rnd]

On 5/20/2026 at 4:28 AM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

AI slop now. Thank riddence I binned google as a search engine over a year ago.

Every half a year or year something gets dead, to then continue to exist. How many those "dead" have there been? Why do you consider a temporary swing as something "dead"?
When will sensationalism finally get dead?  

By the way, Open AI has been loosing  billions monthly. It's not been profitable, that is.
 

Edited yesterday at 02:14 AM by rnd

[Natasha Tori Maru]

13 minutes ago, rnd said:

Every half a year or year something gets dead, to then continue to exist. How many those "dead" have there been? Why do you consider a temporary swing as something "dead"?
When will sensationalism finally get dead?  

By the way, Open AI has been loosing  billions monthly. It's not been profitable, that is.
 

It's called rhetoric

I have used Google since it was established.

It is very, very poor quality now. So, to me, it is dead. 

[Joseph Maynor]

Not really.  I still use Google Search on occasion.

[Mellowmarsh]

On 21/05/2026 at 0:28 PM, Rigel said:

What is a good search engine?

The mind of God.

And God looked upon all that was made, and indeed, it was very good. 👍 The engine is the driver. And the driver is God. 
 

The search ends in the research that never began.

 

Disclaimer: I’m just kidding. That’s what goats do.

Edited yesterday at 08:23 AM by Mellowmarsh

[LordFall]

10 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It's called rhetoric

I have used Google since it was established.

It is very, very poor quality now. So, to me, it is dead. 

How is it poor quality? It still works better than most search engines if not all. I use duckduckgo too and it indexes a lot of stuff poorly. I would go as far as Google is one of the best companies at everything and is more on top of their shit than anyone. They have the best map software and the best cloud infrastructure and the best video hosting platform. Google is goated come on now Natasha take off the boomer hat.

Even this great meme is courtesy of Gemini 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@LordFall how has it changed? 

[LordFall]

Hasn't changed it still works as intended you just got got by anti AI propaganda 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

14 minutes ago, LordFall said:

Hasn't changed it still works as intended you just got got by anti AI propaganda 

It has. 

I've probably been using google a lot longer than you. 

Stop trying to push your anti AI agenda rhetoric on me in place of actually thinking about the question. I'm not anti AI. I don't run around accusing you of being obsessed with AI. Or implying it's blinding you etc.

Edited yesterday at 01:30 PM by Natasha Tori Maru

[LordFall]

Well I’ve explained in my original comment that I don’t think the quality of the indexing has gotten worse and any competitor I use seems much worse. 
 

You’ve only put ai slop as a comment in your original thread that’s why I made the boomer meme. If you have actual criticism against the platform I’d be curious to hear them. For me it only got better and the AI summaries they put at the top of queries saves me a lot of time since I think most sites are trash at displaying information efficiently so usually it saves me time. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@LordFall AI integration being pushed, pulling up lower quality and narrower search results, as well as now having to vet more information, isn't enough? It is like citing Wikipedia as a source. 

I don't think you are using search engines in the same way I do. If you are using them for surface general stuff, and you actually use AI spat out from them, I do not think you are using them as the tool I am. 

It's like I'm reaching for a nailgun, and suddenly I am being given a hammer and told its the same thing.

Notice I didn't add some mild and weird hominem attack you to try to make a point. You took my critique as some sort of overall statement regarding AI (which I use, and think is great, just not when it is forced or supplants something else IE Google search - which generally tells me you just reacted without really thinking). In addition - please don't feed my image into AI generators. I would appreciate you not doing that. 

It. Is. Forced. Slop. 

The. End. 

Good. Day.

Edited 23 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[LordFall]

I use search engines to find information easily not really to do deep research if that's my goal then I'll read specific works by authors I wanna learn from. I mean I won't do it again but any image you upload to the internet is already scrapped by many different sources. 

You seem to be against AI overall and don't seem to have explained your perspective on it in depth so don't take offence to me calling you anti-AI, that's just my observation. The more in depth we make these discussions the more useful they are to me and I assume many others as we are on a self-development forum. I think casual venting is fine but it doesn't make for quality discussion so I appreciate you explaining your perspective further. 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Gemini implemented in google search is really not that bad anymore, it used to not even remember your previous responses within that conversation, now it's on the level of a decent A.I. Clearly, Google's main advantage wasn't research and groundbreaking discovery, it was that they owned the most popular and visited search engine ever, among many other things. They just inserted the A.I. features into an already massive platform and gained massive attention instantly. Furthermore, it's not like it's not showing you classic search result compilation of websites, videos etc., in case you're interested, you can just move your finger a little and scroll. So I don't even know what fancy schmancy features do you need to not call something a slop, not even sure what are those fancy schmancy activities performed by yous, necessitating such features. Doesn't seem to me like yall are doing that much LOL

[Basman]

My issue is that AI overviews tend to be biased in two primary ways that are unhelpful. One, they base themselves on only a handful of sources which are often partial and skewed like Reddit, making the overview more suspect in terms of truthfulness despite it sounding confident. Basing an overview on a handful of forum posts from a platform that is designed to create echochambers is problematic in of itself. Two, they tend to prioritize splitting things down the middle 50/50 even though many questions have a relatively clear answer. If an overview starts with "a matter of intense debate" then usually there is actually a relatively clear answer but the AI doesn't want to make it for the sake maintaining retention and avoiding polarizing users, regardless of truthfulness. 

AI overviews are very convenient though, but they can't substitute proper research. Their implementation gets in the way of proper research as the AI is prioritized over quality sources. Pressing those headers with popular questions that relate to your query used to be really good but have now been replaced with AI overviews, which is less useful. It's slopification.

Edited 1 hour ago by Basman

[Natasha Tori Maru]

15 minutes ago, Basman said:

AI overviews are very convenient though, but they can't substitute proper research. Their implementation gets in the way of proper research as the AI is prioritized over quality sources. Pressing those headers with popular questions that relate to your query used to be really good but have now been replaced with AI overviews, which is less useful. It's slopification.

Yep. I am typically using search engines for hard evidence or facts. Or cross referencing a large body of sources to get to the closest consensus. AI can get in the way. And does.

When I go out to buy a bagel I want a bagel. Not a custard block. I don't appreciate being told the custrdr block is the bagel I asked for.

Edited 1 hour ago by Natasha Tori Maru